Jon Stewart Confronts Judith Miller Over Her WMD Errors

Jon Stewart conducted a lengthy interview with Judith Miller Wednesday night. You may recall that before she landed at Fox News, her flawed reporting helped validate the Bush administration’s argument that Iraq had WMDs.

Stewart called Miller to task for not being more skeptical of the Bush administration’s blatant efforts to sell the war. But, predictably, Miller’s only real goal seemed to be to absolve herself of any blame. I detected absolutely no remorse from her. Even if she was as blameless as she wants everyone to think, I'd hope for at least some regret at having played a significant part in such an avoidable tragedy as the Iraq war.

At the end, was this telling exchange:

STEWART: These discussions always make me incredibly sad because I feel like they point to institutional failure at the highest levels and no one will take responsibility for it and they pass the buck to every individual other than themselves. It’s sad.

MILLER: I think they point to intelligence failures that I still worry about every day ‘cause we’re still relying on the same intelligence communities to give us information about Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and the other countries that we have to deal with.

By the way, for a most enlightening look at Miller and what went wrong with her reporting, check out this 2004 exposé in New York Magazine.